


The Beat Goes On

by Rocky_T



Category: Star Trek
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 01:07:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18560821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rocky_T/pseuds/Rocky_T
Summary: It never ends. It goes on and on on.This is a story about All Trek, all characters, all relationships.Star Trek was first conceived by Gene Roddenberry. This belongs to him, and those that carried on his vision.





	The Beat Goes On

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted in May 2009.

This is a story that has been told hundreds of times before, and will be told for hundreds more.

It’s about a captain (brave, of course) and the ship and the gallant crew that makes up the vessel’s heart and soul. The ship is named _Enterprise_ , _Voyager_ , _Defiant_ , _Challenger_ , _Excelsior_ , and a million other names besides. The captain is male, or female. He/she is white/black/green/red/yellow/blue. He/she is bald, balding, has abundant hair. The captain has a steely voice, instantly recognizable. “Engage”, “Do it”, “Let’s see what’s out there.” He/she is an astute student of human(oid) nature, dabbles in the arts and cooking, and is a Shakespeare buff as well. He/she always puts the needs of the crew above personal wants and desires. And the price is high--he has no beach to walk on, no one to share the lonely off-duty hours.

The first officer, whether he is a science officer, a reformed terrorist/freedom fighter, or just a protégé waiting in the wings, is very smart. He complements the captain in every way, cool cerebral logic to offset the heat of command, brash derring-do to offset the caution of the commanding officer, passion and heat and identifying with his/her people while the captain must stay at a remove. He is human, he/she is alien, he might even be a hologram or a machine (that desires to be human as well).

The captain is in love with the first officer. The feeling is mutual. You can tell by the glances they exchange on the bridge, while trading quips at the end of a successful mission, the affectionate slaps on the back, the way she squeezes his shoulder confidentially. Or the sight of him clutching his friend’s radiation-burned, lifeless body. Or the way he holds his captain’s still form amidst the crash of a shuttlecraft, begging her not to leave him.

The navigator/operations officer/helmsman is young. The captain may see his/her youth reflected in the young ensign’s eyes. And he is always a young ensign, except when he is not. Eventually, given enough time, this youngster will be given the opportunity to grow up. Leave the nest. Serve under others’ commands. Maybe even be given a command of his own one day. But he will always return to his original mentor, the captain who saw his potential those many years ago. And he will always be unfailingly loyal, even at the expense of his Starfleet oath.

The doctor is a miracle worker. He is male, she is female, close enough to the captain, in some mysterious and undefined manner (maybe by a shared secret past?) to give him/her unsolicited advice when it is most needed. “A man will tell his bartender things he won’t mention to his doctor.” The doctor will offer a drink, a physical, a well-timed scolding while all the while tending to the patients’ bodily needs. He/she will save them all—except when he/she can’t. “He’s dead, Jim.” “I’m sorry, Jean-Luc.” “I’m a doctor, not a ____.” The doctor is single. He/she has children he/she is close to, estranged from due to the demands of the job. The doctor understands, more than most, just what the sacrifices of the job entail.

The engineer, of course, is the true miracle worker. He/she has a fiesty temper, an impatient manner. He/she doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and is suspicious of anyone mucking around with _their_ engines. Romance is on the short side for the engineer, although she may eventually unbend enough to allow someone to love her. The real passion is reserved for the warp coils, those unfathomable, irreplaceable dilithium crystals, the plasma warp relays that forever seem to be blowing. He/she crawls through miles of Jefferies tubes, invents new ways to transport through shielding and cataclysmic events. He cannot change the laws of physics, though he of course can almost always come close enough.

The rest of the crew are just like you and me. They are communication officers, security experts, workers in the science labs and in stellar cartography. They are historians, whose special expertise comes in handy on missions. They are the best and the brightest. They look up to their captain as father/mother, and knows the feeling is reciprocated. They don’t want to disappoint. They will move heaven and earth to follow orders, except when they are seduced by an alien and what he/she represents. They wear red shirts, they wear gold, they wear science/medical blue. They are short-lived, they become immortal, they stay together as a unit due to circumstances beyond their control, due to personal choice even at the risk of the advancement of their own careers. The captain feels every single one of their losses like it has been torn from his/her own body.

There are villains, as well. They have bumpy foreheads and ridges, spots in intricate patterns. They are blue, they are gray, they are gold. They are reptillian, fish-like, crystalline, humanoid. Like the crew, they also look a lot like you and me. They are ambitious, needful, spiteful, heroic and tragic and sometimes just plain evil. Sometimes our enemies become our allies, and vice a versa. They are machines, created by us in our heedless youth. They are machines who became self-aware and evolved far outside human ken until our paths collided violently. They are gods. They see us as insects, they see us as beloved pets, or perhaps even something more one day in our far off futures, if we can evolve beyond our present limited natures. They see as stumbling blocks in their paths to glory. They see us as rivals. They see us as the allies who betrayed them. They are suspicious; they greet us with open arms. We sneer at their naivete, until we are humbled when their true natures are revealed.

Each mission teaches something basic about our own natures, that we knew but just forgot about, that was so deeply buried until the lesson was administered. The captain and crew never interfere with more primitive societies, unless of course it becomes necessary. For their own good, of course. Or for our own continued survival. The captain is gleeful at our victory, our continued survival. The captain mourns for what was lost.

Above all, the captain is deeply bound to his/her ship. He/she always goes down with the ship. Sometimes the captain stands on the burning, apocalyptic surface of a planet, watching his beloved vessel plummet downward on a path of destruction. Sometimes the captain (or an officer acting in his stead) deliberately crashes the ship on a surface. Sometimes the captain and senior staff order the ship to self-destruct. Sometimes the captain announces “Time’s up” and steers her ship directly into the path of the enemy, not regretting the loss of her own life if it results in the greater good.

These are the voyages of the starship _Enterprise/Defiant/Voyager/Excelsior_ , to boldly go where no one has gone before. And go they will, on and on and on, forever pushing back the final frontier, discovering new life and civilizations, through the sectors, quadrants, galaxies, time and space and every dimension.

They go on and on and on, accompanied by a rising cascade of drums and horns in the background, stirring the hearts and minds of the observers, forever seeking new adventures, to see what is out there. There is no end, there never will be an end.

This is a story that has been told a hundred times before, and will be told for hundreds more.


End file.
